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Best Way to Catch a Ride

SkiCarpool.org

A thumb and some skis or a snowboard will still reliably get you a ride up Loveland or Berthoud Pass most days, but for longer journeys starting from the metropolitan area or anywhere else in Colorado, try the virtual hitchhiker's rideshare board at SkiCarpool.org, a non-profit operation with the motto "Make friends, not traffic." Offer to drive or pitch in for gas and you'll have some brand-new riding buddies within minutes. The site also features a Colorado Ski Country USA snow report, links to the dreaded CDOT updates, and information on winter driving and fuel economy. Way to ride!

Best Place to Learn Double-Cork 1260s

Woodward at Copper

Snowboarding moves pretty fast, and this year's double-cork craze kept Colorado pipe jocks JJ Thomas, Zack Black, Steve Fisher and Matt Ladley out of Olympic contention. All four will be working out over the trampolines, foam pits and air bags at Woodward at Copper to play catchup, and the indoor/outdoor action sports camp is your best bet for learning some new tricks, too. Start with the mandatory One Hit Wonder training session, then check out the Winter Day Camp and Summer Camp options, where you'll go from indoor training to on-snow sessions in Copper's terrain parks.

Best Rockie

Troy Tulowitzki

As Troy Tulowitzki went in 2009, so went the Rockies. And in the end, both went to the playoffs. Tulo started the season slow — he hit .200 in April and .240 in May — but he came to life around the time the Rox also caught fire. By September, he had re-established himself as the team's offensive leader, finishing the season with a team-leading 32 home runs. Combined with his youth (he's 25) and a smooth glove (he finished second in the majors in fielding percentage), he edges out Todd Helton as the top Rockie.

Best Sports Team ? College

University of Denver Pioneers hockey

A bona fide powerhouse, the University of Denver Pioneers' success has the utilitarian benefit of being damn entertaining, and for ticket prices that don't require special financing. The country's No. 1 team at the end of the regular season, the Pioneers entered the playoffs poised — expected, really — to reach their fifteenth Frozen Four and compete for their eighth national championship. They then promptly lost their opening playoff game. Still, if Magness Arena isn't part of your winter-entertainment agenda, make it so next season.

Best Beer Yoga

Bristol Brewing Yoga Classes

Find your center. Now, come to mountain pose. Slowly stretch into warrior pose and hold. Return to mountain pose and take a sip of your beer. Yoga isn't for everyone, but the Bristol Brewing Company in Colorado Springs is closing that gap by offering guy-friendly classes geared toward beginners — and beer drinkers. Attendees get the class, water, and post-workout pint in the Bristol Tasting Room. Namaste.

Best Hot Springs

Hot Sulphur Springs Resort & Spa

Hot Sulphur Springs Resort & Spa is like a hot springs buffet. The place boasts 21 mineral pools, some indoors and some out, whose temperatures range from 95 degrees (for the timid) to 112 degrees (for the bold...and boiled). The all-natural water is chock-full of stuff like sodium, sulfate and magnesium, which sound like ingredients for a chemistry experiment but are supposed to be good for your skin. And while the pools smell like sulfur, the odor isn't overwhelming or unpleasant. For $17.50 a day, it doesn't get much more relaxing than this.

Best Skate Shop Skate Team

303 Boards

Every skate shop in the country has a team of local skaters repping it, but the 303 pros have done more to shape the Denver skate scene than any other crew. Team riders Angel Ramirez and David Reyes have been getting coverage in the national skate mags lately, and 303Boards.com is updated a few times a week with new footage from the shop's 303, CLFX and Street Trash team riders. Watch for It's Always Sunny in Colorado, the new 303 video directed by Bucky O'Connell, due out this summer.

Best Free Snowshoeing Tour

Redfeather Snowshoe Tours, Copper Mountain

If you've ever had a hankering to strap a couple of rackets on your boots and take off across the snow like Jesus walking on water, Copper Mountain's Redfeather Snowshoe Tours offers a chance to try the egalitarian winter sport, with quality equipment and a guide — for free. Led by Copper Resort Ambassadors, the tours give you a slower view of snowed-in mountain meadows and forests than the one that speeds by when you're schussing down the slopes. Choose one of two tours offered daily — a more rigorous three-hour morning hike for adults or a two-hour, family-friendly romp in the afternoon — and get a real taste of the winter landscape.

Best Snot Stopper

The Snot Spot

You should never wipe your nose on your mitten. Not only will you have snot on your mitten, but you'll scratch the living hell out of your soft nasal tissue. Vail's Monica Martin took this to heart when she came up with the Snot Spot — a fleece-and-Velcro partial covering that fits over gloves and mittens so you can blow your nose on the go. Made in Denver, the first Snot Spots hit retail in 2005. Today there are four styles: two for skiers and snowboarders, one for runners and one for bicyclists. Made of ultra-absorbent Malden Mills' microfleece, a Snot Spot sucks the mucus in below the surface so it doesn't show. But you should still wash it — often.

Best Chance at Beating Shaun White in 2014

Matt Ladley

Four years is a long time in snowboarding, but we'll put our long odds on Matt Ladley for the next Olympics. The young rider from Steamboat Springs is inexperienced and inconsistent and a little bit insane — he was one of the first to huck a double cork in the pipe after Shaun White showed it was possible — and with a little bit of work, he just might be in Sochi, Russia, in 2014 for the XXII Winter Olympic Games.

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